Page 241 of Burn of the Everflame

I fought the urge to defend Ophiucae, glancing over my shoulder to see if he was still in the grasslands. My attention stopped on Henri instead. He stood apart from our group, turned half away, gaze fixed on the ground.

Luther’s hand tightened on my waist as he followed my stare. “The key,” he called out.

Henri’s head popped up. He pulled a key from his pocket and reached for my arm, but Luther’s glare stopped him short. He swallowed and held it out to me. “For the other arm.”

I looked down and realized that my wrist hadn’t slipped free of its shackle—it had been unlocked. While I’d been doing everything in my power to kill him, Henri had been trying to set me free.

“You were supposed to come alone,” he said to Luther.

“Can’t imagine why he didn’t trust you,” Teller muttered with a blistering glare.

I frowned at Luther as he took the key and unlocked my other wrist. “You and Henri are working together?”

The iron bindings thumped to the grass. Luther pulled out a strip of fabric from inside his coat. Scrawled across it, in a burnt sienna ink of dried blood, were a few brief words:

Three days. Sophos Library. Come alone. —H

“It was tied to the leg of a messenger hawk,” Luther explained. “Along with this.” He pulled out a second object and let it dangle from his hand. The moonlight reflected off its spinning circular surface with a gold-and-crimson glint.

“My necklace,” I gasped.

“I took it off you in the boat,” Henri said. “I knew Vance would steal it if he saw it.”

“Why would you help me escape?” I asked. “You helped them take me from Lumnos.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know you’d be on that boat. I went with Brant so I could find Vance and kill them both for what they did—what we did—to Andrei. I should have done it the day it happened.” He looked down at his feet. “I was . . . confused.”

“You were a coward,” Teller snapped.

Henri didn’t argue. “I’d do anything to relive that day again.”

“You kept working with him,” I shot back. “You brought me to Vance in that canal, and you told me how happy you were that I was working with him again. You brought him to the funeral.”

Henri’s eyes filled with tears. “He said that framing the Descended for Andrei’s death would turn you against them. And it worked—you agreed to help the Guardians. I thought if we could free the mortals together, everything would be worth it. One death to save so many lives⁠—”

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Teller said.

“I’ll help,” Taran growled.

A wave of nausea crashed over me. I sagged against Luther as the full weight of the truth dragged me down. Their awful, heinous plan had worked. I’d judged Henri for losing himself to his hatred, but I’d done the very same thing.

Luther cupped my face and begged me not to blame myself as Teller and Taran launched accusations like knives at Henri, who alternated between pleading for forgiveness and laying all the fault on Vance.

I was tired of the constant debate over who was most to blame. Every single person in Emarion had opinions to spare on who got us into this darkness and who stood in the way of getting us out. Did their condemnation make the world any safer? Was my father any less dead? I was so gods-damned sick of seeing justice bring no peace for anyone—just more blood, more corpses, and more blame.

“Let’s go home,” I whispered to Luther.

He sent Henri to retrieve the lantern while Taran and Teller searched the fallen mortals for weapons, then he gently swept aside my hair and secured my pendant back around my neck. “Obaneryn is waiting for us in a boat on the outer coast. He’ll use the tides to get us out of Ophiucae’s reach, then Sorae will pick us up once she’s back from Umbros.”

“Sorae is in Umbros?”

“Your mother’s spy sent word that Vance and his men were headed that way to attack. We couldn’t get your army there in time, so Sorae went to protect it.”

My heart swelled at her loyalty, still serving me even in her freedom. I tried hard not to think about how easily Ophiucae could turn her back into a slave, and how powerless I’d be to stop it.

And how easily he could do the same to Luther, Teller, and Taran.

The others returned, and Henri handed the lantern to me. “I’ll take your place in the cell and pretend to be sleeping,” he said, pulling the hood of his cloak back over his head. “He won’t notice you’re gone until it’s too late.”